Distribution of surface plastic debris in the eastern Pacific Ocean from an 11-year data set.
Kara Lavender Law,Skye Morét-Ferguson,Deborah S. Goodwin,Erik R. Zettler,Emelia A. DeForce,Tobias Kukulka,Giora Proskurowski,Giora Proskurowski +7 more
TLDR
An accumulation zone is defined in the North Pacific subtropical gyre that closely corresponds to centers of accumulation resulting from the convergence of ocean surface currents predicted by several oceanographic numerical models.Abstract:
We present an extensive survey of floating plastic debris in the eastern North and South Pacific Oceans from more than 2500 plankton net tows conducted between 2001 and 2012. From these data we defined an accumulation zone (25 to 41°N, 130 to 180°W) in the North Pacific subtropical gyre that closely corresponds to centers of accumulation resulting from the convergence of ocean surface currents predicted by several oceanographic numerical models. Maximum plastic concentrations from individual surface net tows exceeded 106 pieces km–2, with concentrations decreasing with increasing distance from the predicted center of accumulation. Outside the North Pacific subtropical gyre the median plastic concentration was 0 pieces km–2. We were unable to detect a robust temporal trend in the data set, perhaps because of confounded spatial and temporal variability. Large spatiotemporal variability in plastic concentration causes order of magnitude differences in summary statistics calculated over short time periods or ...read more
Citations
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Plastic waste inputs from land into the ocean
Jenna Jambeck,Roland Geyer,Chris Wilcox,Theodore R. Siegler,Miriam E. Perryman,Anthony L. Andrady,Ramani Narayan,Kara Lavender Law +7 more
TL;DR: This work combines available data on solid waste with a model that uses population density and economic status to estimate the amount of land-based plastic waste entering the ocean, which is estimated to be 275 million metric tons.
Supplementary Materials for Plastic waste inputs from land into the ocean
Jenna Jambeck,Roland Geyer,Chris Wilcox,Theodore R. Siegler,Anthony L. Andrady,Ramani Narayan,Kara Lavender Law +6 more
Journal ArticleDOI
Plastic Pollution in the World's Oceans: More than 5 Trillion Plastic Pieces Weighing over 250,000 Tons Afloat at Sea
Marcus Eriksen,Laurent Lebreton,Henry S. Carson,Martin Thiel,Charles J. Moore,Jose C. Borerro,François Galgani,Peter G. Ryan,Julia Reisser +8 more
TL;DR: The total number of plastic particles and their weight floating in the world's oceans is estimated from 24 expeditions across all five sub-tropical gyres, costal Australia, Bay of Bengal and the Mediterranean Sea conducting surface net tows and visual survey transects of large plastic debris.
Journal ArticleDOI
Plastic debris in the open ocean
Andrés Cózar,Fidel Echevarría,J. Ignacio González-Gordillo,Xabier Irigoien,Bárbara Úbeda,Santiago Hernández-León,Alvaro T. Palma,Sandra Navarro,Juan García-de-Lomas,Andrea Ruiz,María L. Fernández-de-Puelles,Carlos M. Duarte +11 more
TL;DR: Using data from the Malaspina 2010 circumnavigation, regional surveys, and previously published reports, this work shows a worldwide distribution of plastic on the surface of the open ocean, mostly accumulating in the convergence zones of each of the five subtropical gyres with comparable density.
Journal ArticleDOI
Degradation Rates of Plastics in the Environment
Ali Chamas,Hyunjin Moon,Jiajia Zheng,Yang Qiu,Tarnuma Tabassum,Jun Hee Jang,Mahdi M. Abu-Omar,Susannah L. Scott,Sangwon Suh +8 more
TL;DR: The amount of plastics accumulating in the environment is growing rapidly, yet our understanding of its persistence is very limited as discussed by the authors, and the amount of plastic waste is currently generated at a rate approaching 400 Mt year−1.
References
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